[13]. Massimo d'Azeglio's letter of September, 1859.—What he says of the Roman States was applicable to the whole of Italy. Proofs have been discovered, in all the centres of agitation during the Revolution of 1848, of the presence of Austro-Jesuit emissaries, foremost in every seditious movement. At Milan, a certain Urbino, one of Mazzini's most violent partisans, was conspicuous as the leader of the rabble in the disgraceful opposition to the annexation of Lombardy to Piedmont, and in the hostile demonstrations against the king, which furnished plausible arguments to those who inveighed against the fickleness and disunion of the Italians. He is now known to have been all along a paid Austrian spy. In Tuscany, about the same period, an individual of infamous reputation, the author of a number of libels against Charles Albert, was clearly convicted of exciting revolutionary tumults, and thrown into prison. But the Austrian ambassador interfered promptly on his behalf (a proceeding the more extraordinary as the man was a Piedmontese subject), procured his liberation, sent him out of the country, and discharged all his debts.—Gualterio, Le Riforme, Vol. I., p. 553, with documents, &c.
[14]. Asses of the Marches.
[15]. In 1262, the number of students congregated in Bologna amounted to 10,000. It was the first medical school where dissection of the human body was practised; and claims the discovery of Galvanism.
[16]. So calmly did they anticipate this dénouement, that they provided themselves with an appropriate token of gratitude to their future deliverer. The ring with the inscription, “From the exiles of Ancona,” which they presented to the excellent and gallant Captain Nicholas Vansittart, of H.M.S. Frolic, on their taking leave of him at Corfu, had been made beforehand by a jeweller in Ancona.
[17]. The people nicknamed him Cardinal Oudinot, a pleasantry which stung him to the quick.
[18]. 18th June. This city had also declared for the protectorate of Victor Emmanuel, and a participation in the war of independence.
[19]. The possession of revolutionary emblems, such as tri-coloured cockades, scarfs, &c., was punishable, or rather is punishable, with from three to five years in the galleys. Private families were enjoined, under a penalty of ten dollars for the first offence, to report to the police the arrival of any guest from abroad (the nearest town was comprised in this designation), with a statement of his purpose in coming, his station in life, &c.
[20]. I am acquainted with a large landed proprietor in the Marche, who, debarred by peculiar circumstances from taking an open part in the liberal movement, passed his time last summer in assisting the flight of the Anconitan refugees. He told me the number who had been forced to expatriate themselves was immense, and yet many are in prison.
[21]. The kilomètre is about two-thirds of an English mile.
[22]. Apropos of this, I cannot help citing the witticism of a Genoese, not a convert, more just than flattering to his townspeople. “I do not believe these charges of bribery,” he said, “not from partiality to the Valdese, but because, if they paid people for going to their church, half Genoa would be with them.”